


feels like we've already waited too long

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:49:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2327621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Within fifteen minutes of the news getting out about soulmates, Sheldon’s ensconced in a hazmat suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feels like we've already waited too long

**Author's Note:**

> The Big Bang Theory characters do not belong to me and I am making no financial profit off this work of fan fiction.
> 
> * * *

Within fifteen minutes of the news getting out about soulmates, Sheldon’s ensconced in a hazmat suit.

“That’s not going to work if your bond is activated by something other than touching,” Leonard says, and then says it again louder when Sheldon frowns and turns his head enough to reveal the firmly wedged in earplugs.

“Leave him, sweetie.”

Penny, contrary to her words, makes peppermint tea in an attempt to coax Sheldon to at least open the faceplate of the suit.

He does look at it longingly, but then goes and shuts himself in his bedroom.

“You can’t hide from this forever!” Leonard yells through the locked door.

Penny is pretty sure she imagines the grumble of Sheldon’s voice in her mind: _yes, I can_.

* * *

It’s kind of fun and kind of frustrating. See, there are a bunch of different ways to find one’s soulmate, and they’re not exactly all created equal. And there’s zero science to it, which is driving her scientists mad.

Leonard has a timer on his inner left wrist that’s serenely counting _up_ , which he stuck a Band-Aid over as soon as they established it was counting from quite some time before he met Penny.

Howard has _can I take your order?_ in a cute little squiggle on his ankle that he ribbed Penny about for a whole minute before Bernadette (telepathically) reminded him that she used to waitress too. Penny can’t be too mad at Howard because the look he gets on his face every time Bernadette says something in his head, even if she’s telling him off, is unbelievably sweet.

(She is, yes, a little jealous that their love story has this bonus.)

Raj sits on the floor letting Penny comb her fingers through his hair, checking his scalp for someone else’s handwriting.

She’s already spent forever in front of the mirror, turning and turning, inspecting her own body. There’s nothing new. Her sou— _courage_ , damn it—tattoo looks a little smudged at the edges but that’s time, not a secret code.

Penny’s still on the floor, peering down the back of Raj’s shirt and trying to talk him into taking it off, when Amy walks in. That’s how come she sees it.

“I need to talk to Sheldon,” Amy says, voice unsteady, cheeks streaked with tears.

“Ames—”

Amy looks down and shakes her head and walks past Penny, and Penny sees it again.

That thing that isn’t a tattoo on Amy’s ankle. That graceful loop and swirl of Arabic letters.

* * *

Raj has drunk most of a beer and conceded to taking his shirt off by the time Amy comes back out of Sheldon’s room. Penny feels like it should have taken longer – for Amy and Sheldon to break up, not for Raj to strip, he usually doesn’t need that much encouragement.

She follows Amy into the hallway, almost running into Stuart on the way.

“Hey, Penny, Amy.” He gives her a game but shaky smile. “Do you know—”

“Go get a beer and take your shirt off, you can be after Raj,” Penny says, waving him into the apartment and closing the door behind him.

“Do you have to go?”

Amy’s eyes are downcast, her hands linked at her waist. “I have my period.”

Penny blinks.

“Faisal can feel my cramps,” Amy clarifies. “He can feel my pain. Penny, he can _feel what I’m feeling_.”

The implications for this assert themselves in Penny’s mind. “Oh. Oh, _Ames_.”

“It might stop if we meet in person,” Amy says.

Penny knows that the only thing anyone’s determined happens for sure when bonds meet in person is that if they knowingly touch each other the bond gets stronger. Symptoms may vary. Take two shots of tequila and disbelieve again in the morning.

She kisses Amy goodbye, tongue and all – “Give him something to wonder about,” she says, and Amy smiles – and then watches one of her very best friends walk down the stairs and, who knows, maybe out of her life forever.

If this is happily ever after, she wishes she’d taken the path less traveled. Or something.

* * *

Instead of going back into the boys’ apartment, Penny goes across the hall to her own place. She goes into the bedroom, strips, and turns circles in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door.

Her hands cup her breasts, lifting; nothing under there. Her fingers stay a moment, thumbs rubbing slowly over her nipples, bringing them to hard peaks. She remembers the day Sheldon accidentally touched her breast, how that one jagged jolt of pleasure had cut through the constant pain for just a second.

She feels like static bursts suddenly in her head. No words. It’s like the sensation of a question somebody doesn’t dare to ask.

Stupid. She’s just stressed.

There’s a good way to de-stress, though, and she’s already part of the way there. Penny crawls onto her bed, rolling to her side, getting comfortable amidst a strew of clothes and cosmetics.

She’s already wet, and drags her fingers through that wetness before catching her clit between two fingers, rubbing slowly along the hot hardness tucked away in its folds of secret skin. Her other hand goes back to her breast, and she can’t help but think of Sheldon again, of the look on his face and the tone in his voice.

And his assertion that the hero always peeks.

The mind-static fuzzes again.

“Quiet, Sheldon,” Penny murmurs out loud, not even aware of saying it. Her fingers curve against herself, two pushing expertly inside her heat, her thumb settling on her clit.

It’s so much clearer when she comes.

Leonard’s voice, in her head, letting out a slightly strangled, _Penny?_

That solves that, then. She must’ve had her mental wires crossed.

Funny, though; he sounds like he has an echo.

* * *

She washes her hands and gets dressed, back into the same clothes just in case anyone notices, although at this point there are so many other things going on that showing back up wearing different shorts is probably the last thing anyone will notice.

The assembly in the boys’ living room has changed. Amy’s still gone, of course, but so is Leonard. Raj is stripped to his underwear and lounging in Leonard’s chair with Stuart in his lap; their foreheads are pressed together and they’re looking into each other’s eyes in a tender way that contrasts oddly with Raj’s lack of clothing. Howard and Bernadette, making out on the couch, seem oblivious to everyone around them.

Penny claps her hands loudly. Bernadette looks up. Stuart drags his gaze away from Raj and looks at her as well. Howard and Raj make identical disappointed noises.

“Answer two questions, and then you’re free to go back to… whatever it is you’re doing,” Penny says.

“Is Amy all right?” Bernadette asks before Penny can ask her questions.

“She’s headed to Riyadh to meet her soulmate. You tell me.”

Bernadette flinches.

“Yeah, I know. Where’s Leonard?”

“He came in his pants and ran off to the bathroom,” Raj says.

“He – what? When?”

“About five minutes ago,” Stuart puts in helpfully.

“Okay, good. Now my _actual_ question number two is, what the hell?” She looks very pointedly at Raj and Stuart.

“Oh,” Raj says. “His name is on my thigh.”

“Yeah…”

“And my name is on his wrist.”

Stuart lifts his right hand by way of demonstration.

“So… if you could see _that_ , how come you had to strip right down?”

“Just _checking_ ,” Raj says, with the least innocent smile she’s ever seen.

Penny sighs. “Okay, lovebirds, how about the four of you go double date somewhere and let me figure out Leonard?” She starts toward the bathroom.

“I wouldn’t—” Stuart reaches out as she passes and catches her wrist with gentle fingers.

“ _Why_.”

“Because Sheldon ran in there after him.”

* * *

The four of them clear out anyway, fortunately _after_ Raj has gotten dressed again (and Bernadette has rebuttoned her blouse. God, it’s meant to be _soulmates_ , not _Fuck Orgy 11_ ). Penny hovers outside the bathroom door until they’re gone and then pushes it open without knocking.

Sheldon is leaning against the vanity, the top half of his hazmat suit discarded on the floor, his mouth gleaming kiss-bright. Leonard is sitting on the closed toilet lid, looking down at his feet.

Both of them turn to her as she walks in, and suddenly Penny’s mind is _awash_ with their voices.

Sheldon, surprised: _I didn’t think you were coming back. I thought that you and Amy—_

Leonard, rather less coherently: _You made us both—Penny, we both—it’s_ both _of us—_

“I know,” Penny says out loud. She steps over the white crumpled plastic and tugs Sheldon’s head down to hers, and the second their lips touch she never wants to let him go.

Except that she does, because she can feel Leonard with them as well, and two connections by themselves can’t make a triangle.

She drags her mouth away from Sheldon’s and looks over at Leonard, holding out her hand. When he stands up she can see the damp splotch on the front of his beige chinos and she holds back her laughter, but he sighs in her head, _Oh, just laugh_ , and so she does.

Leonard’s hand meets hers, fingers interlacing as they’ve done a hundred times before, and his mouth finds hers with similar ease.

She knows when he takes Sheldon’s hand with his other hand. For a second their voices in her head are all she can hear

– _pennyPENNYpennyPENNY–_

and she nearly falls over, leaning heavily into Sheldon, who catches her.

The voices in her head cut off mid-word.

Leonard presses up against her back, reclosing their triangle with his arms around their waists. (Mostly. They’re not that long.) Penny rests her head against Sheldon’s shoulder. Looking down, she sees something on Leonard’s right wrist, something that wasn’t there before.

The math isn’t hard. It’s _her_ timer, counting forever upward, like the one for Sheldon on his left wrist.

“I can’t hear you anymore,” she says, hearing the disappointment in her own voice. Not that she _wants_ them always there, but, just. It’s like having nothing all over again.

Sheldon turns his right palm to her. All their initials, encased in a heart. With an arrow.

_I didn’t need to see the letters. I recognized your style._

“I think we might have to think _at_ you,” Leonard says at the same time. “But…” He disentangles himself from them and steps away, and she immediately feels the distance between them. It’s not painful, or sad, or worrying. More like… _hopeful_.

Penny nods slowly. “All right. But,” she adds, “there’s one more thing.”

_What?_ They both sound worried.

“I think I need to see you two kiss. You know, just to _prove_ this thing works.”


End file.
